Ed Avis, managing director of APDSP, and Achim Carius, executive director of motio, raise a toast at the IGEPA conference in Essen, Germany
By Ed Avis
I traveled to Germany last month to attend the annual event of motio, the German reprographics organization. In the last edition of APDSP Today, I wrote about my visits to the factories of two German vendor members of APDSP (click here to read that article). In this article, I will describe my visit to the motio meeting itself and the related trade show, where I saw several products that may interest APDSP members.
The Business of Repro
Motio is the German counterpart of APDSP, and our relationship goes back many decades. Like APDSP, motio recently changed its name – until a couple of years ago it was known as Wirtschaftsverband Kopie & Medientechnik e.V., which is still its official name.
Our associations have had somewhat parallel experiences – when times were good for the industry, our respective associations thrived. During the recession, we both suffered. However, motio made it through the recession in better shape than IRgA. Even though its membership has declined, it has always maintained its nice office building in Frankfurt, and kept the same staff. It also continued its regular annual meetings.
I first attended a motio event in 1996, and have had the good fortune to attend the last five straight. Every year those visits strengthen the bonds between our groups, and I learn something worth bringing back to the states. The Germans have reciprocated – a sizeable group of them attended our events in Baltimore and Atlanta, and motio’s executive director, Achim Carius, and his family visited me in Chicago this summer.
Small Meeting, Large Show
Dimense 3D Printer
This year’s motio event, in the industrial city of Essen, was smaller than in past years,
primarily because the group is changing its annual meeting from the fall timeframe to spring. This fall’s meeting was small because a larger event is being planned for April.
Re-board
However, the group co-located its event with IGEPA, a reasonably large trade show that is geared towards customers of IGEPA Group, a hybrid distributor and systems integrator in large-format imaging. The show occupied two floors of GRUGA Hall, a convention center and concert hall best known for
hosting the Beatles in the 1960s.
The IGEPA event was loaded with media, equipment, and services. I took note of three that
IGEPA Select
seemed particularly interesting:
Dimense: This Lithuanian company has developed a wide-format printer that can print shallow 3D images. Here’s how it works: It lays down a layer of special latex ink on media t
hat is slightly heat sensitive. As the media passes through the printer, it
swells where there is no ink; thus, 3D images up to 1 millimeter high are created. The colors are fantastic, too, and the combination of the colors with the slight 3D effect creates remarkable prints. Their website provides some good visuals, though not much explanation: http://www.dimense.com
Re-board: If any of your clients have a need for really sturdy but temporary structures, such as trade show exhibits, point-of-sale displays, or “pop-up” retail locations, you might want to check out the materials offered by Re-board Technology. This Swedish company makes strong, light panels from specially designed cardboard. Part of the strength of the material comes from the angled interior layers, which make the boards far sturdier than normal cardboard. The material can be printed on directly with digital printers. Learn more at www.reboard.se
IGEPA: The IGEPA organization itself showed off some remarkable LED wall display technologies that could transform a room. The images at right show it best.
Motio Booth and Meeting
Motio had a booth in IGEPA, which it used to promote members’ services to attendees. A big attraction in the motio booth was a system called Cocktail-Box, which dispenses a variety of
motio's booth at IGEPA
tasty cocktails at the touch of a button. Carius brought cups with the motio logo, and the empty cups spotted all over the IGEPA hall were evidence of the promotion’s success.
Apart from their participation in the IGEPA event, motio’s annual meeting was a small affair, primarily just a board meeting with reports from various committee members. Carius explained that the group gained two new members in the past year, but lost three, leaving them with a total of 142. As in the United States, a major concern among repro firms in Germany is the decline of paper due to digital documentation – eight or nine major construction projects in Germany over the past year were entirely handled with BIM.
The financial situation of motio is helped by the fact that they run several other organizations, including a group for microfilm specialists and another for scanning specialists. They also manage a home-grown organization – Go4Copy.net – which is a subset of motio members who handle large jobs cooperatively (read an article on the APDSP site about Go4Copy.net by clicking here). In addition, Carius explained that they’ve converted the first floor of their office building into a rental apartment that generates 1,500 euros a month.
The group’s next event, which will be a full-blown convention including education and a tradeshow, will be in the city of Mainz on April 13-14.
Essen
I can’t end my Germany story without saying a few kind words about the city of Essen, the location of the meeting. Essen was flattened during WWII, and it lacks the old-world charm found in many German areas. I had been in Essen once before – in the 1980s – and didn’t remember it as particularly attractive.
However, I was completely surprised by how pleasant the main downtown of Essen is today. The primary shopping area is a stretch that probably runs about a mile through town and is packed with interesting small shops, restaurants, bars, coffee shops, art galleries, and other diversions. If I get the chance, I’ll definitely come back and spend some more time in Essen.
This year’s trip to Germany ended with a visit to Carius’ home in Oestrich-Winkel, a super charming village along the Rhine River. Carius and his wife Anette, who accompanied him on his trips to IRgA events over the past few years, are always gracious hosts who embrace the value of strong relationships between our cultures.
Ed Avis is the managing director of APDSP. Reach him at ed.avis@apdsp.org